The fate of Wyoming Public Media hangs in the balance, after Wyoming’s Joint Appropriations Committee last week voted to discontinue providing state funds to the public media organization.
If state legislators approve cuts at its budget session next month, Wyoming Public Media will see an $800,000 loss to its annual budget, on top of the $500,000 it lost when funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was axed last summer.
The vote reflects the Wyoming Freedom Caucus’s promise to tighten state spending. At least five members of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, a coalition of Republican House legislators who advocate for limited government, sit on the House Appropriations Committee.
Wyoming Public Media is one of several entities on the chopping block as the Joint Appropriations Committee crafts its budget bill to present to state legislators next month.
Rep. Ken Pendergraft, R-Sheridan, who voted for the cut, said he believes funding public media should not be a role of government.
“I believe it is important for journalism to be independent of government tethers,” he told Cowboy State Daily in a phone interview. Defunding public media sources “has been a conservative ideal for many, many years,” he said.
Sen. Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, voted against the cut, saying it was a “crippling amount” and a decision that would ultimately “haunt the state.”
Wyoming Public Media General Manager Christina Kuzmych said in an email statement that she was “disappointed but not discouraged, and we will continue to present our case to legislators.
While we respect their positions and opinions on public media, we cannot overlook the thousands of listeners our audience tracking systems indicate rely on public media for information, cultural programming and entertainment.”
The vote came within other committee votes which collectively could slash the University of Wyoming’s funding request by approximately $61 million over the next two years. Wyoming Public Media has been headquartered on the University of Wyoming Campus since its founding nearly 60 years ago, when it was known as Wyoming Public Radio.
Cowboy State Daily previously reported that the committee majority voted to cut hundreds of millions from Gov. Mark Gordon’s proposed $11.13 million budget over the upcoming two-year cycle. February’s budget session will mark the first since the Wyoming Freedom Caucus won control of the House in 2024.
Bob Beck served 34 years as Wyoming Public Radio’s news director, from 1988-2022. Last week’s vote to ax state spending from the organization is a big hit, he told Cowboy State Daily.
“It’s certainly a mess,” he said. “I don’t understand what the problem has been or why we’re even in this situation. The public service that that station has provided has been tremendous.”
The Vote
Last week’s vote advances part of the draft budget bill the Joint Appropriations Committee is preparing for next month’s legislative session. Wyoming Public Media’s state funding comes through the University of Wyoming’s block grant. If the vote is approved by state lawmakers in February, Wyoming Public Media will lose 17% of its annual funding – or $800,000 per year.
Kuzmych said through the state block, the university funds eight personnel who produce local programming and operate 50 statewide sites with emergency alerting responsibilities.
If the cuts succeed, the jobs of those eight staff members will be on the line, she said. She added, “WPM already streamlined operations significantly to cope with previous federal cuts, leaving no ‘fat’ in our budget for further reductions.”
Like Federal, Like State
The vote comes months after the US Congress voted to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Pendergaft referred to those cuts in joint appropriations hearings and said Wyoming would “follow suit.”
Gillette-based Rep. John Bear, who chairs the House side of the appropriations committee, told Cowboy State Daily he had called for a review of the media company’s state funding so he “could understand what their funding streams are.”
Congress saw fit not to fund national public radio, he noted. Last week, Wyoming lawmakers likewise voted not to fund state public media.
PBS, Meanwhile
Separately, the Joint Appropriations Committee voted to continue the regular $3 million in base funding to Wyoming Public Television, which saw a third of its funding cut after last year’s federal slashing of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. All three of Wyoming’s delegates to the U.S. Congress voted for that cut, Cowboy State Daily reported prior.
Though it’s another public media outlet, the Riverton-based Wyoming Public Television is not the same as Wyoming Public Media.
Wyoming Public Television had requested a roughly threefold increase in state funding following the federal cuts. The Joint Appropriations Committee opted to not increase state funding for the organization, Bear said.
“Replacing the funds of the federal government is not a state taxpayer responsibility,” Bear told Cowboy State Daily in a phone interview. “It’s not our responsibility to make up those funds.”
A “Free Market?”
Pendergraft suggested that public media outlets should be able to stand on their own, without public funding.
“If public media outlets are as good as they say they are, they can stand alone in the free market,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “And they should.”
But Beck, who served as Wyoming Public Radio’s news director for over three decades, said asking public media to compete with the free market is like comparing apples to oranges.
“It’s not a level playing field,” he said.
Wyoming Public Media differs from private media companies in that it can’t sell commercials. The station largely depends on private donations and underwriters – businesses that support it through financial gifts – to operate.
Specifically, Kuzmych said the media organization receives 41% of its annual funding from individual donors and 7% from corporate underwriting. That leaves a 51% budget shortfall if all government funding stops.
After the federal cuts, Kuzmych said Wyoming Public Media “appealed to donors, who came through magnificently.
“We were able to save 2026 and start building for 2027,” she said in an email. “Now we’re being asked to cut another $1.6 million for two years. That would take some super huge donations to cover into perpetuity. Colorado public radio stations could perhaps do this, with a population of approximately 5 million people. Not Wyoming, with a population of approximately (580,000).”
During his tenure at Wyoming Public Radio, Beck said everyone was involved in fundraising for the station.
“The way public broadcasting was set up is you’d have public money that would supplant it and then you would fundraise the rest,” Beck said.
“We’d talk about the things we did and noted that there’s a price tag for it,” he said. “We were relying on people’s goodwill.”
About one in 10 people would donate, which was on par with national statistics, he said.
Donors closed the funding gap left by the federal cuts – for this year.
“Will those people continue to give? That’s a big question,” Beck said.
Pendergraft said whether public media can compete in the free market is of no concern to him.
“I don’t care whether they can compete or not,” he said. “I’m a free market capitalist. If you want to compete, get out in the free market, stand on your own two feet and compete.”
News Desert?
If legislators approve the cuts next month, Wyoming Public Media may not be able to continue. That would be “a huge loss for people,” Beck told Cowboy State Daily.
Pendergraft countered, saying if public media goes away in Wyoming, he does not believe the state’s news climate won't be affected. He added that state funding cuts wouldn’t necessarily signal the end of Wyoming Public Media.
“It doesn’t have to be a total loss,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “All they have to do is replace a portion (of their funding).”
What’s more, he said, is if the organization is no longer supported by government funding, it can operate however it wants to.
“If that tether is gone, they’re free to sell advertising and do whatever they need to do,” he said.
Bear agreed, telling Cowboy State Daily that a more competitive news environment is more representative of the people of Wyoming.
But Kuzmych said if the cuts go through, “something will have to give.
“Producing news and services like Wyoming Sounds is not possible without staff, and WPM cannot effectively serve a state that spans approximately 97,000 square miles with just two engineers,” she said. “We provide an excellent service that arguably is costly. We provide it to a state of only 280,000 individuals. If Wyoming is to have good services, it needs to harness individuals, institutions, the federal government, and the state.”
The station brings news to places in Wyoming where there is no other radio station and no other local news, Beck said. Wyoming Public Media is often the only radio station people driving across the state of Wyoming get.
As Wyoming Public Radio’s news director, Beck helped to launch Open Spaces, a weekly news program that Wyoming Public Media still produces. Open Spaces allowed for in-depth reporting on serious issues across the state.
“I would find people from all the political spectrums and loved it,” Beck said.
Kuzmych said as a public content provider, WPM is not in the position to tell the public what it likes or wants.
“The public drives programming decisions,” she said.
A Lot of Ballgame Left
Last week’s vote leaves a lot of unanswered questions, Beck said.
Still, he said, “there’s a lot of ballgame left.”
The state’s budget session begins Feb. 9. The session will give the full Wyoming legislature the chance to amend and advance the budget bill before the bill is presented to Gov. Mark Gordon for his signature.
University of Wyoming spokesperson Chad Baldwin told Cowboy State Daily the university will follow what the legislature directs.
“In terms of speculating moving forward on WPM, I would say that we are not going to defy the Wyoming legislature,” he said.
Kate Meadows can be reached at kate@cowboystatedaily.com.
